Human beings are not machines. They need rest. And with serious athletes, like runners, it is even more essential.
It doesn’t matter if you are preparing for a marathon or just following a training routine; your body is under stress. Moreover, if you overdo it, running can cause harm to your body.
Many runners have retired earlier than they could because of burnout. What leads to burnout, you may ask? The answer is simple – ignoring the importance of rest days.
In this article, we will discuss the significance of rest days from running and how best to spend them.
How Important Are Rest Days?
Preventing Injury
Everyone knows that rest reduces injuries, but how? The answer is simple – workouts without rest lead to overtraining, which, in turn, causes injuries.
Your muscles and joints need rest because when you run, you stretch the muscle fibers and ligaments. What happens if you don’t let your muscles rest? Without proper rest, they will not be able to recover, and your training will harm you instead of benefit you.
Your Performance Becomes Better
Beginners mistakenly think that rest days can lead to the loss of their progress. The truth is that it takes about two weeks of total inactivity for your body to lose any of the skills it has learned from workouts and decrease its performance level. So one day off won’t affect your performance and fitness.
On the contrary, rest days between workouts allow your body to recover. Recovery, in turn, reduces the risk of overloading and physical stress. All these factors enable your body to adapt to the training load, which you increase from time to time.
So, yes, it may sound contradictory, but if you want to become faster and stronger, you must have rest days. If not, everything will happen exactly the opposite. Even pro runners take days off because they know rest days are the secret to achieving their goals.
Good and Healthy Sleep
Intense workouts can move your body into a state of constant restlessness, hyperactivity, and increased excitability, leading to heart palpitations and insomnia.
Good and healthy sleep is crucial for success in running because it influences your performance and motivation. If you have this condition now, you should rest. A few days will help you reduce excitability and heart rate, regulate sleep, and restore strength.
Normal State of the Immune System
During intense workouts, your immune system constantly works to heal your muscles and joints. Without proper rest, it may not keep up, and the body’s systems will not recover in time. What will happen next? You’ve already guessed – injuries.
Mental Recovery
Overtraining syndrome appears to be a maladaptive response to excessive exercise without adequate rest, resulting in perturbations of multiple body systems (neurologic, endocrinologic, immunologic) coupled with mood changes.
From a psychological point of view, recovery can rekindle your motivation for exercise and prevent the development of depression. Don’t forget that mental fatigue can be just as harmful as physical fatigue. Therefore, rest is also necessary to rewire the psyche.
How Often Should You Take Days off From Running?
According to research, you should have at least one running rest day per week. If you are a beginner, you can take 2 or 3 rest days and reduce the quantity as you become more resilient.
How Much Should a Runner Rest After a Race?
A runner recovering from a 10k run may require several days of recovery. In fact, it is not uncommon for professional athletes to spend several weeks after a grueling race in recovery microcycles.
Can I Run On My Rest Days? How Should I Spend a Rest Day?
The best way to spend your rest day is doing a non-running activity. You could do cross-training, yoga, or go bike riding. You could even take a long walk with your friends or family.
Don’t forget that your nearest and dearest miss you when you completely dedicate yourself to workouts – rest days are the perfect time to be around them.
When to Take a Rest Day From Working Out?
Of course, it is better to include the rest day in your regular running schedule. For example, if you run a lot on the weekend, make Monday your rest day. If you are training to run a marathon, and the long run is on Saturday, take a day off on Friday to be full of energy for your long run.
Still, there can be different situations, so you can add additional rest days. How do you know if you need more rest? Here are the signs you should pay attention to:
Feeling tired. Waking up in the morning, you feel exhausted, sore, or tired even after 7-8 hours of sleep. This is a signal that you need one or two days off.
Cannot fall asleep. As we said above, you require a rest day if you still feel tired after 7-8 hours of sleep. Still, if you have trouble falling asleep, it is a sign that your nervous system is working at its maximum.
Lack of normal sleep leads to poor performance and endurance. It can also inhibit the conversion of glycogen. Moreover, studies show that lack of sleep leads to an increase in the level of cortisol (stress hormone) and a decrease in the activity of human growth hormone. The last is very important for runners.
What to do? Take a rest day and implement new habits: stop using your phone before and in bed, and follow a bedtime routine to condition your body to sleep.
Staying dehydrated all the time. If you constantly feel very thirsty or the color of your urine is dark yellow, this is a sign of dehydration. Exhausted adrenal glands begin to secrete cortisol, also called the stress hormone, which increases the need for water. Without normal hydration, the body reaches a catabolic state, leading to severe fatigue, joint and muscle pain, and insomnia. As you see, all the symptoms go round and round.
Sluggishness while running. Every runner has bad workouts from time to time. Still, if you feel weak and sluggish during the last few workouts, it is a sign of burnout.
Mental burnout. Working out every day results in mental exhaustion. When you have no desire to run, it may be a sign of laziness, but if you feel it constantly – you have a burnout signal. Your body is so exhausted that it just doesn’t have the energy to train.
Heart Rhythm Disorders. An increased or decreased heart rate signals exhaustion. If your body reacts to your workouts with such symptoms, take 1-2 days off. If symptoms persist, see your doctor.
Wrap Up
Rest touches all spheres of our life – if we want to stay motivated and improve, we should take a break from time to time. Working hard at the office, you wait for a weekend and vacations. If you are a hard-working athlete, rest days are essential. Otherwise, you risk mental burnout, injuries, and other issues with your body.
